Two Monuments
The Colfax Massacre occurred during Reconstruction when Republicans, many of whom were black, won the election. The White League and kukluxklan joined forces to take back the Parish Court House. 300 armed white militia faced black and white defenders of the court house. When James Hadnot was shot by his own men, the attackers started to shoot the black defenders who had surrendered. 48 were killed that day and the white militia turned its anger on the black residents.
Villifying Black Republicans. Colfax Riot, 48 Black Americans massacred after surrendering and another 100 residents killed by the white mob.
Heroes Fighting for White Supremacy
Run, after looking up the decisions of the Waite Court, and relating to Colfax, I assume you’re referring to the Court’s United States v. Cruikshank (1875) decision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank
Supreme Court overturned the convictions of the white men [who murdered the blacks a Colfax], holding that the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies only to state action, not to actions by individual citizens. It said that the plaintiffs had to rely on state courts for protection, although at the time and for decades after these courts never convicted white men for murder of blacks.
OR perhaps you’re referring to United States v. Reese (1876) in which
“Due to this ruling, states began to develop means to exclude blacks from voting while keeping within the constraints of the 15th Amendment. They adopted such devices as poll taxes (which many poor black and white sharecroppers, who lived on credit, did not have ready cash to pay); literacy tests, subjectively administered by white election officials, who tended in practice to exclude even educated blacks which is often very rare; grandfather clauses, which admitted voters whose grandfathers had voted as of a certain date, which also excluded blacks; and more restrictive residency requirements, which disqualified people who had to move to follow work.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Reese
In short creating the path to Jim Crow voting disenfranchisement of blacks… which the court upheld.
Notably, reflecting the times and the general place in the US society of the newly freed and new citizen former black slaves, Waite was a Northerner appointed by Grant Waite previously joined the Republican Part in his strong opposition to Slavery.
Opposition to Slavery however didn’t necessarily also translate to mean opposition to racial discriminating and preventing blacks from receiving the same rights as white citizens.
Clearly there were at that time both citizens and then the “other citizens” with the laws and their enforcement interpreted to apply separately to each type of citizen.
Parenthetically, in my other readings of the period it is apparent to me that the real priority was re-uniting the former confederate states with nation such that the re-uniting process wouldn’t force another stand-off situation to develop.
Despite the new 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments (passed and ratified by the states not among the confederate states before they were re-admitted to the Union and with re-admission contingent on ratifying the amendments), the amendments had to be interpreted to allow the former confederate states the latitude in applying those amendments in practice to prevent another stand-off or federalizing them again.
The appearance of “unity” was apparently paramount.
Dude:
Why are you explaining this to me? You owe me an email.
Bill
Dude:
To put the Colfax incident in context of SCOTUS’s Waite Court decisions and what those decisions meant.
I assume you knew this, but I wasn’t sure of whch of either decisions you were referring to . Very few people have a clue about the “Waite Court’ . even Ii had to recall which decision(s) that court made of significance to the subsequent effects it had. Both decisions I referred to had major consequences thereafter but neither of those decisions are widely known. They’re not like “Brown v Board of Education” or “Madison v Marbury” fer christssake..
So since I had to look the Waite Court decision up and relate them to Colfax or racist laws I just posted it… figuring perhaps other readers could benefit more directly.
And I’m still not even sure whether the point of your post was the massacres at Colfax or the Waite Court…. seems to me the Waite decisions are of significantly greater ultimate significance, then and for decades later… though the massacres were a clear illustration of the racist atrocities going on at the time, the Waite Court gave the weight of federal law to open season on blacks which the southern former confederate states took full advantage of.
Not parenthetically in considering SCOTUS decisions there’s always the behind the scenes issues between the three separate but equal powers where SCOTUS must depend on the Executive for enforcement.
It is not beyond sound reason that the Waite decisions I referenced had more to do with whether President Hayes would enforce a decision that ruled blacks had full rights and that the Colfax murderer were upheld.
“Hayes had been a firm supporter of Republican Reconstruction policies throughout his political career, but the first major act of his presidency was an end to Reconstruction and the return of the South to “home rule”. Even without the conditions of the Wormley’s Hotel agreement, Hayes would have been hard-pressed to continue the policies of his predecessors. The House of Representatives in the 45th Congress was controlled by a majority of Democrats that refused to appropriate enough funds for the army to continue to garrison the South. Even among Republicans, devotion to continued military Reconstruction was fading in the face of persistent Southern insurgency and violence. Only two states were still under Reconstruction’s sway when Hayes assumed the Presidency and, without troops to enforce the voting rights laws, these soon fell.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes
From where I sit the Waite decisions were more about the political expediencies to protect the power of the Supreme Court as a relevant entity at all.
We always seem to forget that the major accomplishment was that slavery was abolished forever more, the slaves were free, not longer property, and the costs of this accomplishment were far, far greater than anybody had ever actually expected. There would have been little interest in starting the war all over again or continuing it with massive federal enforcement against a fully capable insurgency… and in that event what would have happened to the newly freed black who remained mostly in the South? the Colfax massacres would have been nothing in comparison.
Longtooth
thanks for the history lesson. probably helps explain what was going on at the time.
on the other hand we could all sit around and drink those old memories of past atrocities until we can work ourselves up to another civil war. what fun. does the South have nuclear weapons?
Coberly:
Crucial decision in determining how the bill of rights apply to state citizens. It set the stage for many of the violations of individual rights we typically take for granted. United States vs Cruikshank 92 U.S. 542 (1876)[1] was a pivotal decision resulting in recently freed Black Americans having few protections unless states provided them. United States vs Cruikshank 92 U.S. 542 (1876)[1] was also cited in the SCOTUS Heller decision.
I really wonder how many people do want a new civil war. I had assumed that the deplorables constituted perhaps 30% of the population and that Trump got elected because rank and file Republicans who have wrongheaded policies but who I did not believe were white supremacists or fascists voted for him rather than a Democrat and a woman to boot. The failure of the GOP to call out the president by name suggests that the days of dog whistles are over and we will see whether the rank and file are as racist and fascist as their elected representatives think. Presumably blacks, Jews and Latinos will not figure they have nothing to lose in voting Republican or not voting in future elections. If we do devolve into civil war everyone will lose and will lose big time. The country’s reign as superpower will end and China and Russia will duke it out and our allies will fall under their umbrellas. Perhaps that is what we deserve, but I guarantee it will not end any better for the white nationalists in this country than it did for the Nazis in Germany. Do you think the generals have been talking with Congressional leaders behind the scenes? If Congress sits idly by–as it appears the majority will–then the military is the only group that can save the country. As dear leader would say “sad”.
Terry
I don’t think anyone wants a new civil war. But most people… 99.999% won’t DO anything, let along think, to avoid all the ugliness that will descend upon us.
The thugs are just taking advantage of the excuses they give themselves to beat people up. A little law enforcement would solve that problem if it weren’t politically expedient… to both sides… to let it happen.
Run,
basically the same thought. I am glad you are keeping track of the Supreme Court. I tend to disregard them as just another bunch of self deluded people who have been granted godlike status…. because that’s the only way to approximately run a country? I think “the founders” (some of them) understood this. But we were extraordinarily lucky to have had even a few thoughtful men and a times that more or less forced them to be thoughtful. [does NOT mean we can cite “the founders” as godlike sources of perpetual wisdom, as we read it.]
Coberly:
Now, read those sign/monuments again. It is their version of history and a flawed version. The LA Department of Commerce version talks about a riot by “Negroes” in which 3 White people and 150 Negroes died. Jim Hadnot a white man, the leader/instigator of the attacking white league, ku klux klan, and former confederate soldiers, was shot and killed by his own men. The combination of white and black men inside the court house were there to protect the county seat government which was properly elected by Republicans. The issue with the election was there were more blacks than whites in Grant Parish. The white men defending the court house abandoned the black Americans to their fate. They surrendered after a fight and a cannon was used against them. The occupancy of the Court House by the freed Black Americans was legitimate.
After surrendering the black Americans were slaughtered by their white captors. Till a US Marshall showed up two days later, the surviving families were not allowed to bury their dead. For Black Americans who took a stand for their newly granted rights and freedom, their actions were called a riot. For the white confederates, the white league, ku klux klan, and angry southerners; their 3 dead were memorialized as heroes while fighting for white supremacy. The United States vs Cruikshank was one of the worst decisions to ever be made and it can be found cited in many subsequent cases such as Heller.
EMichael has it right. Why are we glorifying people who had it wrong? People who plunged this nation and almost destroyed it into the worst war ever over slavery of Black Americans to support White Supremacy. Signs, monuments, statues to white supremacy and a skewed version of history should be taken down. https://www.theroot.com/what-was-the-colfax-massacre-1790897517 This is a descent version of the Colfax Massacre. I encourage you to read the book by Keith and google it some more. You will find their version and the truth also. I have a post coming up the new movie Confederacy.
The Colfax Massacre is the Confederacy I know.
Run
I have no argument with the first part of your reply to me. But you have misunderstood what I am trying to say. Of course the bad guys are bad guys.
So why give them what they need to recruit the merely confused. The statues arent hurting anyone.
i didn’t know the Confederacy myself. Read about it some and despised it thoroughly.
But I did have guns pointed at me during the civil rights sixties and think i have done more for “black persons” civil rights than EMichael has with his shouts of racism and “hate everyone who looks like the enemy.”
It is true enough that the Civil War was brought on by the owners of slaves who were thinking in terms of a slave empire surrounding the Carribbean and these were very bad people. As were many of their low-life supporters. But why is it so hard for you to believe that most of those who actually fought for the Confederacy thought they were fighting for their freedom, just as the patriots of 1776 thought they were fighting for theirs.
All you accomplish by taking down statues is to drive the “freedom” folks into the arms of the people who would make slaves of them as well as blacks.
In any case you wouldn’t walk into a “primitive” tribe village and spit on their stone idol. It takes just that much common sense.
Coberly:
Go read the comments being made by revisionists here; “Barack Obama is to blame”: 13 Alabama conservatives on Charlottesville Reread the placard statement on the Colfax Massacre calling it a riot: “On this site occurred the Colfax Riot in which three white men and 150 negroes were slain. This event on April 13, 1873 marked the end of Carpetbagger misrule in the South.”
Then go read the memorial for the three white men calling their deaths trying to instill white supremacy. Freedom, hell! They want subjection by all of black America.
Coberly,
The liberal German’s followed your prescription (don’t egg the National Socialists on) .. it turns out it’s not an effective means of stopping atrocious laws and actions, of course.
Though it’s hard even for me to accept it, confronting the issues head on and calling a spade a spade “in-your-face” are effective means and that unfortunately creates animosities, retributions, and defensive behavior, with feedbacks that increase animosities, retributions, etc….. which can lead to much worse, I agree, but more often than not leads to a far more limited “negative” and stopping the continuation of atrocious behavior than “rhetoric” accomplishes.
fwiw, I went through my entire high school years with kids who where 80% & 90% southerners from the deep south and strong military traditions from the Confederacy. I know full well that you can’t give lip service to refute it… it leads to fights in school, on school busses, and at parties and other social gatherngs. I know all the “excuses” and “reasons” why the confederacy was a “fight for freedom” of choice and just causes and I’ve heard them thousands of times, read a few short books on the justifications for the confederacy and secession, etc. by southern academics written in the years before and after the civil war..
If you want to continue to allow racism for another 100 or 200 or 300 years then we follow your prescription. Otherwise, raising a stink, confronting racism with direct opposition, removing commemorative symbols of it that just perpetuate it is the only way to get changes sooner (maybe 25 years? or 50?). The laws get changed and re-interpreted only when public opinion changes and not before.
If the public doesn’t express it’s opinions vividly and openly and frequently and visibly with strong resolve nothing changes.
I’m sick of continually realizing we allowed 100 years of continued virtual slavery and a white racist group of our citizens (a very large group, encompassing the entire former confederate States white populations (90% – 9%% of them) to hi-jack human rights to their own advantage and keep the blacks (non-whites) in a state of 4th class sub-human state, by the interpretations of law that allowed it,
And the reason for why this was allowed to cointinued for 100 years after the civil war? Drum-roll…. because to try to stop it would have required a continuation of the war in the form of massive and continual military occupation fighting an insurrection and keeping the former confederate states in federal territory status, maintaining a dis-union and that would have still resulted in thousand or more blacks being massacred as at Colfax
So getting the slaves freed and eliminating slavery in the US was “good enough” for the time being and anything in addition to that (like giving them equal rights and treatment) would just have to wait. So we waited 100 more years until the Civil Rights Act (where upon 95% of southern democrats and 100% of GOP opposed it in the Senate even then.
And Divine Providence and God’s natural law were the legal foundation for Virginia’s State Supreme Court justices to uphold and defend Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws in 1967 which was the precise same legal foundation the U.S. Waite Supreme Court’s decision used eight decades earlier in 1882 to uphold and defend anti-miscegenation laws in the nation.
In 80 years the legal foundations to defend and protect racism hadn’t changed an iota in the South… and that was 3 years AFTER the Civil Rights Act, and over 10 years AFTER Brown v Board of Education banned segregation in the schools.
So your prescription doesn’t and never did work, not then, not now.
Your prescription is a slow continuation and gradual change to maintain the current system of virtual apartheid…economically, socially, and legally as long as there’s opposition by racists to maintain it.
For shame.
Coberly,
If the non-racist whites don’t stand up en-mass, all the time and at every instance of white racism raising their voices and assembly to promote it, it’s a prescription for maintaining the status quo.
If the non-racists whites don’t remove the symbols that tie the past atrocities to the present ones, then how do non-racists justify retaining those symbols? Why should they tolerate them? Nostalgia? Tto keep the peace? Feign a “united” states?
The population has two legal remedies:
1 Voting
2. Free Speech and Assembly.
We only get to vote occasionally, and Gerrymandering in the South and in other racist strongholds negates a lot of votes.
But we can exercise our freedom of speech and assembly daily, in every social gathering at every opportunity while getting our hair done or haircuts or casually while checking out our groceries at the super market, and on our way to lunch with others and at lunch in restaurants and cafe’s in public places, standing at a bus-stop or in the airport security lines or while were stuck in our seats in enclosed airplanes.
Every time we hear somebody say something offensive to our anti-racist sentiments we can speak up loudly and with resolve.
And yes this is probably going to create animosity and not be “civil’ in many cases and it might even drive the racists underground more and create back-lash, and its disruptive to “congeniality”
But besides the occasions to vote this is the only other legal means we have to express anti-racist views. Oh, we can write Op-Eds and Letters to the editor or “community views” sections of the local newspaper but those don’t illustrate a wide-spread public opinion which opposes racism, beside which newspapers select those letters so that it gives both sides equal time and space, so to speak… making it appear to be “equally divided” views.
I had a black girlfriend once in high school. We withstood the animosity and name-calling and ostracism defiantly for about 6 months or maybe only 4.. I forget exactly, before that social pressure forced us to abandon our intimate relationship. “They’ won. “We” lost. I’ll never forget it. By my time in college I swore I’d never let “them” win that fight again if I could help it, no matter the consequences to me.
So I’ve raised my voice every time I hear discrimination (gender, sexual preference, racism, ethnic, and religious) and I do it nicely but firmly and clearly without mincing words, so that it’s very clear and unmistakable. I find out very quickly that way who are racists and bigots and who aren’t… not necessarily at the moment, but subsequently by who stops inviting my wife and I or who doesn’t stop by any more for a beer or coffee, or who doesn’t say “hi” when we cross paths somewhere. It’s important to know who your “friends” are and who aren’t of similar mind in these things. How else to know it?
And while I say that I’m still friends with racists who acknowledge it and are willing to discuss their real foundations for it honestly with me, without excuses of “natural law” and “God’s will”, “sub-humans”. And interestingly most of them know that their beliefs are becoming more and more opposed over time and it’s only a matter of time before racism will largely be just a small subset of society… a tiny fringe, and they’re scared to death that it might happen sooner than later.
sorry, but the south was invented by jews. they(euro jewish bankers) gave the planters their deeds and ran the financial aspects of the slave trade. hence, they owned it.
white’s down there think as themselves like the house negro would. When you understand that, you understand why they behave why they behave.
longtooth,
yes and no.
confront the racists, sure. put the thugs in jail.
but don’t go out of your way to create hate. you may never cure racism, but you can make it socially unacceptable. most people just want to be left alone. but they like their statues and their flags because they make them feel strong and brave. has nothing to do with racism… except in the minds of the racists. whites and blacks.
Bert
you are on dangerous ground.
i suppose some jews had a hand in financing the slave trade. because that’s what money does. but when you say “jews did such and such…” you sound like a racist, and that is a form of stupidity.
your comment about whites as “house n…..s” is interesting, but probably too dangerous to talk about here.
actually the slave trade was invented in africa by africans. the europeans just cashed in on it. and i don’t think most of them were “jews.”
note to people who know more history than i do: i didn’t say africans invented slavery (although since we are all “out of africa” maybe they did) i said they invented the slave trade. i could even be wrong about that, but there are people not far from here who need to think about the role played by africans in the slave trade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi
Slavery was around long before Jesus. The slave trade was too. This deflection is racist imo.
Yomi
hard to tell which deflection you are referring to. back when tenth grade english worried about dangling references, back when tenth grade had english, we learned to worry about how the reader would understand what we were saying. good practice for communication in general.
hell, even programers used to worry about that.
Run
I know all that. The folks who wrote the memorial apparently thought they had won their freedom from “carpetbagger misrule,” but in any case they were not the typical confederate soldier, or even the typical confederate general, or even the typical southerner today.
and even if they were, the way to deal with them is not to give them an excuse to riot.
as i have said here many times. punish the thugs. shame the closet racists with moderated public opinion (not screaming general insults at all assumed “racists”) and don’t worry about statues.
since you and others here have found fault with me for engaging “trolls”, you ought to understand what i am trying to say.
i’m pretty sure what is going on here is that the japanese guy inside my computer translates what i say and tells the japanese guy inside your computer who translates it back into “english” for you.
no other way i can explain why we each keep saying the same thing and nobody hears us.
Coberly,
You made a couple of statements, more than a few times now.
One of them is:
“and even if they were, the way to deal with them is not to give them an excuse to riot.”
Have you seriously thought about that statement? Giving somebody “an excuse” to do something (in the negative sense). . An “excuse” is an internal rationalization, generally because you feel you’ve been wronged in some way
Now if you are considered to be a racist by somebody, because of your words or actions or a group with whom you are associating, but you don’t like being considered as a racist then what is your internal rationalization going to be? In general one can assume that you will take offense, personal offense and thus it evokes an emotional feeling of being “attacked”. And then you will generally want to return the favor by doing or saying something to make the other person take offense (feel attacked) at what you say or do in response.
So whose responsibility is it to avoid this escalation?
Is it the responsibility of the person who calls out the racist for their words or actions or with whom they are associating to refrain from calling a spade a spade? Or is it the responsibility of the racist who is taking offense at being called out for being a racist by their words or actions or with whom they are associating to refrain from returning the attack (words and/or actions designed to evoke an emotional response)? .
Here’s how I think about it. If a racist is using words or actions of racists, or associations with racists, then they are by definition a racist or an actor deceiving others into believing they’re a racist I’lll assume 99.99999% of the time it’s the former.
Why should one who is a racist take offense at being called out for what they are? The only reason I can fathom is that they don’t want to be considered a racist (because they know others don’t think highly of racists) or don’t believe their actions, words, or associations define them as being a racist. Are they in denial or what? Or is it simply that people who are actually racists don’t define their actions, words, or associations as being racist? I can’t answer that for them.
But what I can say is that a person who calls out another for being a racist because their actions, words, or associations define them as a racist then IF (and this is the big IF) the person calling out out the racist believes that racism is prejudicial to the fair and equal treatment of a different race and wants to shame or visibly identify a racist for their racism in order to perhaps be clear that they don’t accept or tolerate racism then isn’t it their duty as a citizen and member of the society to do so. Or is silence the way to go? (I remind of the German populations silence against persecution of the Jews during Natioinal Socialism’s rise and dominance).
And if silence isn’t the way to go, then why is the burden on the person calling out the racism when they see it, rather than on the racist to refrain from responding if they are practising with words, or actions or associations, racist behavior?
In short, isn’t it proper and right to call out an offensive action, or words, or associations when you observe it if your intent is to shame or denigrate that behavior? Then isn’t anything the person calling out the racist behavior does to shame or denigrate that behavior an excuse for the racist to retaliate?
Next, you also said:
“as i have said here many times. punish the thugs. shame the closet racists with moderated public opinion (not screaming general insults at all assumed “racists”) and don’t worry about statues.”
Who are the “thugs”, what is your definitive description and definition of a “thug” (to identify, and punish them), and how do you punish them?
What do you mean by shaming with “moderated public opinion”? Be specific.
Do you mean writing a letter to your local newspaper opinion page? Going to a local town hall meeting and reading your prepared speech to the council members and the audience? Do you mean not using the word racist to call out a racist who is demonstrating or has demonstrated a racist belief, action, words, or associations?
And if I may use a little bit of history it is apparent that “moderated public opinion shaming” doesn’t work at all to eliminate racism or its behaviors… we have now experienced 150 years of “moderated public opinion” and we’re still pretty much where we were attitudinally for an extremely very large swath of the population as we were then… just a bit less open about it… closeted more to some degree, but in fact with very little progress over that 150 years. The Civil Rights Act has helped to be sure… that was 53 years ago… two generations ago. .
And where are we now? An entire conservative party in half the states campaigns and passes laws to limit voting by minorities (under the guise of “eliminating voting fraud”).
Maybe you’re in some kind of bubble and don’t believe racism is still pervasive in employment, education, and political systems? And a demonstration of this pervasiveness among other things is in racists defense of pulling down and taking monuments to racism out of th public sphere, under the guise of “it’s our history”. BS. Its our racist history and celebrating it with statues memorializing it is an in-your face racist behavior. We know it. Blacks know it, The racists know it.
What do you want? Another 50 years to see how much more progress we’ll have made by then? And then another? and another? All for what purpose and what advantage of continuing to wait? What do you think is gained by waiting yet longer? Over 50 years since the Civil Rights Act isn’t enough time already? How much more is requjired? When is enough, enough?
And your prescription is no different than it’s been since the Civil War.. “moderated public opinion”.
If you tolerate tolerating it longer you’re part of the problem. If you’re opposed to racism, stand up, shout it, be in your face about how you feel. Using how racist will feel and “excusing themselves” for retaliating is your own excuse for tolerating it.
I’m not advocating being violent. I’m advocating being in your face about it. There’s a huge difference. If you’re in peoples face about it, and they strike out at you, then they’re the ones intimidating you and seeking to silence you. I’m using “in your face” figuratively.. don’t misconstrue to mean it literally…. arms length is plenty close enough and don’t carry a weapon or stick or clench your fists as if you will need to “protect” yourself from being intimidated by a threat of violence against you. That physically provocative. If words are provocative that’s a different kind and anybody can say your words are provocative if they chose to make it so, but words by themselves without actions or promoting violent actions are not provocations.. Words are how we communicate to others what we think and why we think it. Without those words unmistakably spoken with intent we are silenced.
Cob,
Can you point me to my post where I said “hate everyone who looks like the enemy.”?
Meanwhile, you simply do not get it:
“The statues arent hurting anyone.” According to you,
““If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”–Joseph Goebbles–
And the lie of the statues have lasted more than a century. And allows the lies like “welfare queens driving cadillacs” to be thought valid.
Never saw anything get solved by ignoring the truth.
longtooth
i am sorry. i am getting too old to read such long arguments, especially when they begin with a complete misrepresentation of what i have been saying “many times.”
the excuse you are giving them is not “confronting their racism” but attacking their idols.. not the idols of racism, but the idols of their country…. those things they grew up believing in as the source of their pride….
that appears to be too fine a distinction for you to make.
I have no problem if people want to display the flag of treason or monuments honoring traitors on private property. What I and many others object to is taxpayer-supported displays of flags and monuments honoring treason.
Same with monuments honoring lynchings.
EMichael
isn’t it a bit naive of you to suppose that you had to say explicity that you hate anyone who looks like the enemy in order to be guilty of hating anyone who looks like the enemy?
as for the lie and the truth.. fine as long as you are the one with the holy truth and “they” are the ones with the lie. from the point of view of the average martian both sides are deceiving themselves.
try this “truth.” you and your neighbors are quietly going about your business one fine day when all of a sudden some guy comes into town and takes a sledge hammer to what you regard as a memorial to the honored dead who fought to defend their homes and families from the tyrannous invader. what are you going to do?
now, suppose you are just as ignorant as the average person throughout history and one of your leading men tells you all this trouble with the memorial is caused by the niggers and jews who want to force you into slavery to the rich men of the north and therefore what you need to do is kill all the niggers and jews.
meanwhile, the people who sent the guy with the sledge hammer to your town where you were minding your own business and nursing your own quiet resentments are telling him that he is striking a blow against racists and murders..
yes, the only possible answer is “let’s have a battle.”
the story of history.
all i am trying to point out is that attacking that memorial isn’t doing anyone a damn bit of good. that is not the way to fight racism.
and i love it when people like you tell me “yes it is, yes it is.”
i guess i never saw anything get solved by ignoring the truth either. but i never saw anything get solved by imagining you have the holy truth and it justifies whatever damn fool thing you do to “destroy the lie.”
good ol’ pol pot.
Coberly,
The stone monument pictured in this post was erected in the Colfax cemetery in 1921. Given the timing and placement of that monument, it would seem to be a dead issue. (Ancient history.) The only thing that I find interesting about it is its Orwellian tone. It is not nearly as moving if we remove the words HEROES and RIOT.
See: https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2015/03/27/tributes-to-terror-the-mis-monumentation-of-the-colfax-massacre/
Perhaps the various assurances about leaving cemetery markers alone was a little premature.
A placard put up by the State Department of Commerce and a memorial to the ku klux klan, the white league, the instigator of the Colfax Massacre of 150 freed Black Americans, and two other white boys and you do not find neither moving??? Two markers put up to designate something called the Colfax Riot, a lie in itself, and calling the massacre of 150 Freed Black Americans a Riot and you do not find it moving and an outrage? They stood for something more than the cowards who slaughtered them before they surrendered and after they surrendered.
jim h
i didn’t find anything moving about the monument at all. i recognized the twisted thinking that when into the inscription. i hear a lot of twisted thinking every day.
what i find troubling is that we have people who find it so quiet around here that they have to go dig up ancient atrocities to suck on their bones and work themselves up into provoking someone else into a fighting rage.
because it’s going to do so much good, you see.
Really Coberly? Is fighting the Civil War, lynching during Reconstruction, and segregating people with Jim Crow laws, etc. ancient history and twisted thinking to you also? Amazing Coberly, f*cken amazing . .
Cob,
Not interested in your analogies.
And you quote someone, it has to be a actual quote. No problem if you take statements of mine and come to your conclusion of what they mean, big problem of faking an actual quote.
Joel
it’s good that you can use the word “treason” with such confidence. I remember when it was commies who were being accused of treason.
and your touching concern for the taxpayer’s money could easily have come from a john bircher.
it’s always nice to have an argument stopping line to appeal to, even if it is ridiculous to everyone not already drunk with the cause.
listen, it is scary as hell to listen to what you undoubtedly regard as “reason” , not because you think that way, but because it is the way everyone thinks… and that’s why we never learn.
EMichael
can you point to my post where i quoted you….?
i can’t imagine why i would lie about what you said to an audience that can see exactly what you said right there in front of them.
this is getting so stupid i am going to run away.
“listen, it is scary as hell to listen to what you undoubtedly regard as “reason” , not because you think that way, but because it is the way everyone thinks… and that’s why we never learn.”
Now you’re projecting, Dale.
Cob, August 17 at 2:12. In this thread.
EMichael
and here is another quotie
“No problem if you take statements of mine and come to your conclusion of what they mean, big problem of faking an actual quote.”
Sorry, EM. I guess I have a little more experience with real writing than you have, so I have no trouble telling the difference between “faking an actual quote” and putting in “quotes” what is obviously a conclusion about what someone means.
i don’t think i misrepresented your position at all.
but things get worse.
Run
for you to so misread what i said after all i have said scares me to death.
i think i’d better leave before i get stoned.
try to imagine that i am on yuor side… (hate racists) and am just trying to tell you that taking away “their symbols” is not a good way to defeat them.
actually not “their” symbols, but the symbols of people who want to remember their courage and pride in fighting what they believed was a tyrant come to enslave them.
but i can see that you would rather hate me than try to understand that.
Coberly
Too bad you can only read one liners… and that you don’t think very much about what is you actually state.
Can you fully explain your reasoning for your statement:
“am just trying to tell you that taking away “their symbols” is not a good way to defeat them.
actually not “their” symbols, but the symbols of people who want to remember their courage and pride in fighting what they believed was a tyrant come to enslave them.”
If a person or group of white people in this case believe in a fallacy, does that justify their subsequent actions of the basis of a belief in a fallacy?
If a group of people tell you a falsehood as a rationalization to mis-direct your understanding and you then take their “word” as one of truth, then haven’t they successfully misled you as they intended?
When you swallow whole, hook, line, and sinker, something that is patently false and understood by anybody who isn’t of the same racist belief system and intention to maintain that racial prejudice, you become one of those people.
To assert the identical rationalization used in rhetoric to justify statues and memorials honoring traitors and those who promoted and fought for the institution of slavery and blacks as sub-humans, worthy of only being slaves to the superior whites as a just and acceptable cause, is an assertion of white superiority and black subjugation… and which just by the way was also used to justify the Jim Crow laws.
Take away the symbols of this belief system and you take away the visible celebrations of it.
longtooth
i have been trying to remain reasonably polite and kind to you. you don’t seem able to extend me the same courtesy. so ill just say that your abiliity to read what i have written is unable to overcome your insistence upon reading what is in your own mind.
it is not only not worth talking to you. it is dangerous.